어휘해체(Lexical Decomposition)에 관하여

Under a naïve view, simple (underived) lexical items such as house, man, die constitute the atoms of meaning which combine syntactically forming structured utterances. Such a view could be supported by the role of simple words in human categorization. In the hierarchy of conceptual categories there is a privileged level of abstraction, called the basic level (Rosch et al. 1976). It is the level at which the subjects are fastest at identifying category members, at which conceptual priming most easily obtains, at which information most easily is remembered over time, and at which a single mental image can reflect the entire category. Basic-level categories tend to be the first ones acquired by young children, and also tend to be expressed by the most simple words. “In general, the basic level of abstraction in a taxonomy is the level at which categories carry the most information, possess the highest cue validity, and are, thus, the most differentiated from one another.” (Rosch et al. 1976: 383f.). In the small example in (1), house is at the basic level, while the composite noun courthouse is more specific, and the derived noun building is more general.